Re: "A message to Louisiana's young people: Your state needs you," Reflections, Jan. 5. Robert Mann's recent article on the alleged brain drain in Louisiana is so far off the mark, one has to assume he is simply being provocative. Of course, the Louisiana diaspora, dating back to the oil bust of the '80s, was real. But since Katrina, and especially over the past five years, this trend of talent migration has reversed in historic fashion.

This is why Forbes named greater New Orleans the nation's "Brain-Gain Cham­pion" for attracting more young people with college degrees than anywhere. Bloomberg ranked us the No. 2 boomtown in America based on our combination of population and GDP growth. Daily Beast named us the No. 2 aspirational city in the nation. We rank high in creating middle­class jobs, and economist Joel Kotkin says we are in the top 10 for worker in-migration, across all ages.

And finally, this year Louisi­ana saw its sixth straight year of net in-migration.

We have a long way to go; progress is not yet success. But to ignore the extraordinary effort and results of recent years is neither helpful nor accurate.